


Separation Anxiety

by almostfamousgrl



Category: The Following
Genre: Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 22:11:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1242460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostfamousgrl/pseuds/almostfamousgrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story about the one time Mark and Luke were separated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Separation Anxiety

They’ve only been separated for a significant period of time once in their entire lives. They were just 18 and they’d been skulking around the downtown area of whatever city they’d been in at the time, when a few guys had started hassling Mark. Luke didn’t take to it well.

The police and the press were all over the gruesome scene and their mother, partially as punishment and partially as a way to best keep them safe, had made arrangements for Luke to stay at a safe house a few states away from the one where Mark would be. 

Luke was furious, screaming and swearing when she told him, breaking anything he could reach. She quietly hushed him and took his face in her hands and kissed his forehead, and told him it was for the best. Lily could calm Luke in a manner no one else could ever manage, and we went, albeit still unwillingly.

Mark’s rebellion is a bit quieter, if no less dramatic. Three days after Luke leaves, a body shows up, a pretty bartender left strung up behind the bar. She was strangled, but authorities had difficulty uncovering signs of struggle. The killer had cleaned her up and posed her. The coverage from the press is generous, which Mark is appreciative of. It means it will likely make enough waves that the message will be received by Luke, wherever he is.

Mark had ensured that she looked beautiful, brushing her long brown hair out gently, and taking time to reapply the violent red lipstick she’d kept in her purse. He even touches up her pale foundation, as it highlights the dark purple bruises that stand out on her neck, the width and color of which Luke will recognize like finger prints and know exactly who left them there. 

It’s a love letter.

Two days after that and Mark finds an article online about a bartender in a dive bar several states away who has been killed in the same manner. Mark huffs a little laugh to himself, knowing Luke must have been disappointed to be so limited in his choices. Still all of the signs are the same, the care and time spend post mortem. And Mark would know his brothers work anywhere. The press is baffled by such similar killings happening so far apart.

Luke’s response has made even more waves than the initial letter. Mark ponders his next message carefully, before deciding two co-eds from the local university, posed as though they’re in the midst of an evening of pampering and makeovers makes his point well enough. Luke responds with a husband and wife, posed as though they died in their sleep, though the slit throats suggested otherwise.

After two weeks of separation the trail of bodies is approaching 10 long and getting increasingly messy and violent. Lily finally comes to Mark and brushes her thumb across his cheek and tells him that Luke is coming home in the morning.

A black car shows up before dawn and Mark intercepts Luke at the door.

No one else sees much of either of them for the next few days, but the occasional loud swearing and thumps against the walls can be heard from one of the bedrooms upstairs.

Lily never bothers separating them again.

**Author's Note:**

> Oddly enough, I wrote this before they were separated at the end of last weeks episode. Somehow that makes this even worse.


End file.
